After a blast in Hawaii, we arrived in Mexico City to start our Mexican journey. Mexico city is the world biggest urban conglomeration, before Tokyo and Sao Paulo.
We spend five days discovering the city, mainly focusing on the historical center of the city.
Centro Histórico
We took a hotel right on Zócalo, the third biggest square of the world after Moscow Red Square and Beijing Tian’anmen.
The Zócalo is flanked by the huge and titled cathedral, the Palacio nacional (the residence of the President until the end of the 19th century) and the Palacio de Gobierno (the city-hall).
La Catedral
El Palacio de Gobierno
Around Zócalo is the colonial sector. We’ve been very surprised by how beautiful and safe the historical center is, and we really enjoyed getting lost in its streets.
Sometimes it feels a little bit like being in Paris
Here is Torre Latinoamericana, first high-rise of Mexico City and inspired by the Empire State Building:
Some sectors haven’t been renovated yet:
And a lot of churches are seriously tilted!
As surprising as it might be, this picture is actually straight
Museum and Aztèque culture
Mexico city was also the opportunity for us to discover more about the Aztèque culture, the inhabitants of the Mexico City area before the Spanish conquistadors arrived to Mexico.
Inside the Palacio Nacional…
Some paintings depicting the lives of the Azteques before the conquistadors
We started off with Templo Mayor. Right next to the Cathedral, Templo Mayor was the most important Aztèque monument. The pyramid, which used to be 45 meters-high, represented the convergence of the sky, the earth and the underworld. Given its importance, no Aztèque government ever tried to move the pyramid and they preferred to completely rebuild it over to the previous one. There are a total of 7 different layers!
The different layers of the pyramid
And what it looked like before
The archeological site was not incredible, but the museum was really interesting!
A box of offerings
We also took a look at the Anthropological museum, which has some great piece of art.
What the pyramids looked like before when painted
One particular thing, in the different Mexican cultures death seems to be a very strong symbol, and is represented everywhere:
We came across this statue when walking in Mexico City
A wall of a building of Templo Mayor
I’m not sure I would enjoy eating my cereals in this bowl
Overall, we were really surprised by our first taste of Mexico. Mexico City is not at all the dangerous city the cliché depicts, and Mexican people were really friendly!
